Comparing the Racial Politics of the IWW in South Africa and the United States, 1905-1925

This recent article in an academic journal examines how the revolutionary syndicalist IWW (an integral part of the broad anarchist tradition) sought to marry class struggles with struggles against racial and national oppression through the One Big Union. This story is an important part of the history of the global working class, but has been marginalised in the literature, in part because of the myth that left anti-racism started with Marxist communism in the 1920s. This paper recovers a history of revolutionary unionism and politics amongst workers of colour, and of their organisations, and it shows that the broad anarchist tradition played an important role in struggles for national liberation and racial equality.

Peter Cole & Lucien van der Walt

"Crossing the Color Lines, Crossing the Continents: Comparing the Racial Politics of the IWW in South Africa and the United States, 1905- ­1925," Safundi: The Journal of South African and American Studies, Vol. 12, No. 1, January 2011, 69­-96

ABSTRACT

In two of the planet’s most highly racialized countries, South Africa and the United States, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, or “Wobblies”), were remarkable. A key revolutionary syndicalist current operating globally, aspiring to unite the world's working class into a revolutionary One Big Union against capitalism, the state and economic and social inequality, the Wobblies operated in contexts characterized by white supremacy and deeply divided working classes. Yet they not only condemned racism and segregation in theory, but actively engaged in the challenging work of organizing workers of color including black Africans, African Americans, Asians, Coloureds and Latinos, against both economic exploitation and national/ racial oppression.

Although the literature on race, ethnicity, and labour in both countries is voluminous, remarkably little has been written regarding the IWW on race matters. Yet the Wobbly tradition’s impressive commitment and achievements largely unappreciated; the myth that left anti-racism started with Marxist communism in the 1920s remains pervasive. This article develops a comparative analysis of these two IWW experiences, bridging the North/South and industrialized/developing country divides in the (labor) historiography, and deepening our understanding of IWW politics and of labor, race and the left in countries with heterogeneous working classes.

Given the centrality of sailors and dockers in the Wobbly movement, particular attention is paid to Philadelphia (US) and Cape Town (SA). In short, this article seeks to correct omissions in the literature of both countries’ labor and left movements by exploring how and why the IWW did what so few other unions were willing or able to do―organize across the color line, reject working class and official racism, with both remarkable achievements (if some limitations) in its emancipatory project.

In doing so, this paper recovers a history of revolutionary unionism and politics amongst workers of colour, and of their organisations, like the General Workers Union, IWW, Industrial Workers of Africa, Industrial Social League, and the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union of Africa. The broad anarchist tradition, including syndicalism, thus played an important role in struggles for national liberation and racial equality.

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On May 30, 2014 we will be celebrating 200 years of Mikhail Bakunin (1814 – 1876), a famous activist of the Russian and international revolutionary movement, a social thinker and one of the founders of the international anarchist movement. [Français] [Русский]

Black Cat Press is pleased to announce the publication of "Revolution" by Carlo Cafiero for the first time ever in English (indeed nor has it ever been published as a complete volume in the original Italian!). The book brings what is certainly Cafiero's most complete, original work to English-speaking audiences for the first time. It is also an extremely important work in that it is one of the earliest attempts at compiling a complete theoretical view of the revolutionary ideal of anarchist communism. [Italiano] [Nederlands]

I’ve just come back from visiting the Kate Sharpley Library in California. Things have changed from the days when I could get there on the bus and we were buying our first filing cabinet. Lots of filing cabinets now, as well as boxes like the Left Bank Books archive. It’s good to look at the non-fiction shelves, seeing ‘old friends’ and new acquisitions.

Narratives of anarchist and syndicalist history during the era of the first globalization and imperialism (1870-1930) have overwhelmingly been constructed around a Western European tradition centered on discrete national cases. This parochial perspective typically ignores transnational connections and the contemporaneous existence of large and influential libertarian movements in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe. Yet anarchism and syndicalism, from their very inception at the First International, were conceived and developed as international movements. By focusing on the neglected cases of the colonial and postcolonial world, this volume underscores the worldwide dimension of these movements and their centrality in anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggles. Drawing on in-depth historical analyses of the ideology, structure, and praxis of anarchism/syndicalism, it also provides fresh perspectives and lessons for those interested in understanding their resurgence today.

The Nestor Makhno Archive has now been updated, with the addition of over 70 new documents in Arabic, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, English, French, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Macedonian, Russian, Spanish and Ukrainian.

We do not see Bakunin as a god who never made mistakes. Of course he was not perfect. was a man, but a man who gave his all for the struggle of the oppressed, a revolutionary hero who deserves our admiration and respect. “From Bakunin, we can learn much about revolutionary activism. We can learn even more about the ideas needed to win the age-old fight between exploiter and exploited, between worker and peasant, on the one hand, and boss and ruler on the other. The greatest honor we can do his memory is to fight today and always for human freedom and workers liberation.”

This article, excerpted from a talk by Lucien van der Walt, co-author of Black Flame: the revolutionary class politics of anarchism and syndicalism, covers key elements of anarchist and syndicalist history, including its role in Asia, Africa and Latin America, its impact on unions and anti-colonial struggles, and its historical centrality.

This is the text of a talk given by Michael Schmidt, co-author with Lucien van der Walt of the book Black Flame: the Revolutionary Class Politics of Anarchism and Syndicalism (AK Press, USA, 2009), at the DIRA bookstore in Montréal, Canada, on 18 March 2010, as part of his Black Flame tour of Canada. Thanks to Marie-Eve Lamy of Lux Éditeur, Montréal, for the transcription.